The painter’s distance to an object can create a symbolic form which, embedded in the colour canon of a painting, functions as a centre of the arrangement. To develop an original work with the ambiguity of a motif - like that of a chair for example - intensity is needed in the process of painting and virtuoso concentration in dealing with the given world of objects. To detach oneself from a depiction that pays attention to the detail leads – like manifested in Claudia Betzin’s paintings – to a sensitive art, which rather derives from the harmony of colour areas than from an exact depiction of the richly contoured objects.

Claudia Betzin’s paintings transform the mundane function of the use like that of a chair into the aura of a topos. This originates from the reduction of its pictorial representation. A reproduction, the recognizable representation, is avoided vehemently, so that a scope remains which allows to let the still perceivable form return as a diverse manifestations in the paintings. The ignored physicality of the object chair becomes a colour accent on the picture and is heightened to a geometric form that functions as a sign on and within the colour areas. Perceiving the colour constellation of the painting, various correlations can be recognized which – associated freely – form a language of symbols. Also, the seemingly atmospheric colour-tones and narrative structures open the way to a vast world of imagination.

Chosen to be the centre of the painting’s action, with the change of depicted to symbolic element, the orientation changes to a rather symbolic language to widen the dimension of the painting’s content. The paintings of Claudia Betzin originate partly from the impulse to set an aesthetic component against the profanity of the object. Also, parts of such objects are chosen to carry a painting, to that unconventional format-formulae like compositions can emerge on it.

This interaction makes the work of Claudia Betzin attractive. Through artistic creation, the real world – the chair – finds its way into painting, and parts of it become carrier for the picture, the painting-format itself.

The arrangement of these organic rather than rectangular forms contains variability. Assigning parts of the painting to a respective counterpart, or lining them up and arranging them in blocks for presentation, unites the decorative aura with the singularity that seems contemplative. Causing ideational stimulation, with the colour arrangements on the wooden parts of the chair like back-rest or seat there is a mental shift in perception from the outer object-world to the inner, meditative world.

So the art of Claudia Betzin has an effect that allows to approach existence from a new point of view. The viewer is mentally stimulated and adds a new visual and sensual experience to seeing. Not seldom this is combined with a desire to explore the paintings by feeling, touching them.

This is certainly initiated by the richly nuanced colouration found as large colour-tone areas in the paintings. The paint is applied in different ways: set thickly with gesticulatory brush strokes, as varnish, coating already existing layers, or as a structure changing direction, the colour substance presents itself with a differentiated aura. Between light and dark there are countless colour-tones that force the eye to discover.

In her paintings, Claudia Betzin uses contrasts sparingly, also in areas where a terracotta red meets a bright turquoise. Typical is her use of an equal intensity of colour that produces a balanced, meditative harmony. The differentiated use of the material leads to an interplay of rhythm and colours in her paintings. Like a game, she shows their variable inner lives – as an opaque plateau, embedded with mat shine, torn to a line. In the paintings, imaginary rooms open, in which the chair repeatedly acts as a sign, completed with figurative attributes.

Each format is narrative and shows the creative power of Claudia Betzin to balance the different consistencies of the colours. Sweeping dynamics as well as measured stays mark the painting process. Thus the whole which is created shows the act of painting as an expression of the ideational approach, as an expression of inner tensions and the intensity of the finding process, as well as the joy of applying the paint.

So the compositions are rather determined by emotions than formed by thought. Nonetheless, the process, the balancing of the possible, leads to a condensed language that respects the values of substance, consistency, light, movement and contrast of the colours.

Claudia Betzin chooses different formats, which means a challenge  to cope with them aesthetically. This is a brave undertaking, concerning the given subject – the fragments of chairs that remind in the broadest sense of still life. In the paintings, traces of a time-intensive procedure can be found, which let colour worlds emerge as a whole, composed of nuances and varied contrasts. That this leads to a – literally – multi-layered result makes the art of Claudia Betzin exciting and worth to be seen.

Dr. Petra Lange

Übersetzung Ina Sperl

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